A 20-bed surgical unit meant to take patients off the waiting list of a major Dublin hospital performs as few as two operations a week, sources say. The unit, at St Michael's Hospital in D·n Laoghaire, was provided last year under the Waiting List Initiative. Its purpose was to treat patients on the surgical waiting lists of St Vincent's University Hospital.
Sources say the unit has been utilised to only a fraction of its capacity. The issue of consultants' contracts, which were with St Vincent's rather than St Michael's, was one reason for the under-utilisation of the facility.
A spokesman for St Vincent's agreed that the unit had a relatively low throughput but said this would change when the two hospitals were fully integrated. St Vincent's took over the "governance" of St Michael's earlier this year.
One of the waiting lists for which the St Michael's unit was intended - ENT procedures - had been brought up to date, the spokesman said. It is believed there was a view at St Vincent's that the unit at St Michael's needed further upgrading. St Michael's will add about 120 beds to St Vincent's current 470.